Description

The earliest history of Babylon is little known Among the many cities flourishing in southern Iraq the town first appears in texts in the third millennium BC Until the last century of the third millennium few references existed to Babylon however offerings made to the temple of Enlil in Nippur during this period when Babylon was part of an empire ruled by Ur suggest a city already of some size and wealth From relative obscurity in the middle of the 18th century BC Babylon emerged as the political center of southern Mesopotamia It held this position almost continuously for the next 1400 years